


but I being young, I heeded her none

by thatsparrow



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, The Adventure Zone: Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 08:11:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16530767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: When Minerva tells him he needs a weapon, Duck tells her to fuck off."This is part of your destiny, Duck Newton!""Destiny can fuck off, too."





	but I being young, I heeded her none

**Author's Note:**

> there might be some minor inconsistencies here with duck's timeline, but I'm alright with that
> 
> title from "rusalka, rusalka / wild rushes" by the decemberists

When Minerva tells him he needs a weapon, Duck tells her to fuck off.

"This is part of your destiny, Duck Newton!"

"Destiny can fuck off, too."

He turns back to the sink and rinses his disposable razor under the tap, blood beading against his jaw where he'd nicked himself in surprise at her arrival. Not that Minerva's ever had anything close to good timing, but at least he's gotten a little less jumpy since she first started showing up — better than one of those first visits when she'd suddenly appeared in the backseat of his secondhand Pontiac and he'd nearly swerved into a fucking tree. Not like a shaving scratch is fatal. And if nothing else, Duck'll settle for the fact that Minerva had the foresight—or he had the luck—that she waited until he was out of the shower before deciding it was time for a chat.

She hasn't said anything else yet, but he can still see her reflection in the mirror, standing behind him where she'd materialized in the bathtub. That ghostly light of hers flickering funny shadows off the scratched and water-slicked porcelain tile, and Duck wonders for a moment if he shouldn't pull the shower curtain to keep any of that glow from shining under the lip of the door. Might be a little rude, though. But it's not like he wants his folks to think it's the fucking _X-Files_ in here, and maybe then Minerva might understand that he'd meant it when he'd said _fuck off_.

"You do not recognize the precariousness of your position, Duck Newton," she says after a beat, her tone animated enough that he can guess what her expression must look like, even if he's never seen her face. "You are in _danger_. You must be able to protect yourself!"

"For fuck's sake, would you keep your voice down?" He turns off the tap and waits for a moment, listening for footsteps in the hall and meanwhile feeling like he's eleven years old again, trying to stay up late without his parents figuring out. But either they didn't notice the noise or they've already gone for the day, because he doesn't hear anything other than the slow leak from the tap.

"Listen to me—"

"Look, I don't have time for this."

"Yes, Duck Newton, exactly! Time is short and we cannot afford to delay. We _must_ find you your weapon."

"No, Minerva, I meant I'm runnin' late for work." He rinses his face, tinting the water red-orange where it runs over the cut on his jaw. Stings something unpleasant, but he really _is_ running late and just hopes that it scabs over before his shift. In the mirror, he thinks he sees Minerva's shoulders fall a little, but tells himself he's imagining things. Likely just leftover guilt for having been short with her, but what else was he supposed to do? In fifteen minutes— _shit_ , he's gonna be so late—he's meant to be shelving returned rentals at Blockbuster and instead, Minerva wants him to, what? Scrounge up some stardust and forge himself a fucking sword? Cut down a tree and carve a bow like he's walked straight out of Middle Earth? Doesn't she remember showing up at 2 a.m. to see him standing barefoot in the kitchen, spooning shredded cheese straight out of the bag, and she thinks _he_ 's the one who's meant to wield an axe against the forces of evil or some shit? Come on. She has to know better.

Still, Duck does understand that, in her own way, she's trying to help. Even if it's help he doesn't want—isn't even convinced that he _needs_ —that's no excuse for him being an asshole. He turns to offer up some kind of an apology before he goes, but he hadn't noticed the light in the room fading back to something a little less unearthly, and that Minerva has already disappeared.

 

—

 

Much as he might want her to, Minerva doesn't let the whole weapon conversation drop that easy. She brings it up again the next time he sees her, and the time after that, trying to get him to consider the merits of a longsword versus a mace while he's fishing his boots out from under the bed. Wanting him to write up a pro-con list debating melee weapons versus ranged attacks like he's got a fucking opinion on the matter. Like he walked out of some museum exhibit on the Crusades and has the first fucking _clue_ whether he'd be better suited to a crossbow or a recurve. She asks him once what he thinks about a lance and Duck bursts out laughing. Pictures himself wandering the streets of downtown Kepler armed with a goddamn _lance_ like some fool who's lost his horse and directions to the Ren Faire.

Jesus Christ, a lance.

But even though Minerva's treating him like a trained knight when he's working with, at best, a recollection of the medieval ages learned from a high-school history book, the conversations don't stop. And, eventually, Minerva gets fed up with him enough that Duck thinks she would've put her fist through the wall if her body had any substance to it.

"How— _how_ —do you not see that this is for your own benefit, Duck Newton?" she asks, sounding several degrees more furious than he's ever heard her. "Do you think I enjoy this? Do you think I make the effort to project myself here for my own amusement? Casting myself _across planets_ because I delight in being laughed at?" She's silent for a moment, and Duck realizes that she's waiting on his response.

"I mean, probably not—"

"Not in the _slightest_ , Duck Newton! No, difficult as this must be for you to imagine, I am only here to help you! And if you insist on refusing that aid—for reasons that I cannot understand—then you leave me little choice. You must have a weapon, and if you will not decide what to wield, then I shall decide for you."

"Wait, Minerva, what are you sayin'? No—hang on—what's that supposed to mean?"

"Until next time, Duck Newton." And as she vanishes, Duck would swear it sounded like she was smiling.

 

—

 

He doesn't find out what Minerva was getting at until he walks into his bedroom a week later and sees a fucking _sword_ sitting in the middle of his bedspread.

Or, at least, he thinks it's a sword. It's got a hilt, and a part running perpendicular that he's pretty sure is called a cross-guard (he's been doing a little research on the subject, big surprise) but the blade is also coiled up tight like a whip, and Duck hadn't seen anything similar when he went skimming through library books. Some cross between Aragorn and Indiana Jones, and Duck is torn between wondering what the fuck he's meant to do with it and trying to figure how it ended up here in the first place.

"What do you think, Duck Newton?" Minerva asks, appearing in the edge of his periphery.

"I think it looks like a sword, Minerva. Or a sword had a baby with a slinky, or something. I don't know — what's it supposed to look like?"

"Your weapon of destiny! Your chosen blade, Duck Newton!"

"Huh," Duck says, looking it over and keeping his distance like there's a copperhead curled up on the coverlet instead of something out of a Dali painting. "Yeah, I'm—uh—not so sure about that."

"Your doubts will be extinguished in due time. Come, now. Pick up your weapon and feel the true weight of your fated path."

"I've never, like, fenced or nothin', though? I mean, I'm not real sure how to—"

"To borrow an expression of yours: for fuck's sake, Duck Newton! _Pick it up_." And not seeing much choice in the matter—not like he can really leave it laying on the covers next to his laundry—he does.

It's lighter than he expected, but it's also not like he's ever held a sword before, so, who the fuck knows, actually. Maybe all swords are like this. Duck supposes it fits in his hand well enough, curves his fingers around the hilt the way he would with a baseball bat and thinks the grip is okay, but mostly he's just conscious of the sweat beading against his palms, his skin slick where it touches the metal. Mostly, he's feeling like a kid putting on a costume, like slipping on a pair of his dad's shoes and stumbling over the extra room at the toes. Sure, he can hold the thing and maybe give it a couple of good swings, but who'd take him seriously in a fight? Who'd see him with the tremble in his hands and think of him as a threat instead of some extra who stumbled out of rehearsal for a low-budget fantasy flick? No, he's more sure than ever that Minerva must've gotten this wrong. Must've screwed up and told the wrong kid in West Virginia that he's the "Chosen One" because there's no _way_ that it's Duck. Not when he's holding this sacred weapon, or divine blade, or whatever the fuck it is, and can't see himself as anything other than a joke.

That's about the point that the blade starts to unfurl, silver metal uncoiling until Duck is holding something that looks less like a metal-shop project and more like a real, proper sword. And he's trying to figure whether he feels any different with it like this, tries to imagine himself doing any kind of damage with the thing, but before he can, he hears—

"Well, well, well, and who do we have here, hm? Is this the illustrious hero I've heard so much about? The fabled 'Duck Newton'? The pleasure, I'm sure, is yours. I am Beacon, and I predict a rich future for the two of us, Duck. You shall carry me into battle and I will open the throats of your enemies, for together—"

"No."

"I'm sorry, Duck Newton," Minerva says from his right, "but I do not understand — what do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean, no. No fucking _way_. Are you kiddin' me with this, Minerva?"

"You think to do better than me, Duck Newton?" The sword says in his hand. "I have been forged by the will of divinity, conquered every foe in my path, and you say _no_?"

"Oh, Christ, _stop_. Jesus, Minerva, how do I shut this thing off?"

"This _thing_? I am a fabled weapon! The blade of the Chosen One, and you dare—you _dare_ —to call me a _thing_ —?" But whatever Beacon says after that is lost as Duck wraps a pair of pajama pants around the blade, burying it under the heap of his laundry and muffling the rest of Beacon's tirade.

"Seriously, Minerva, I fuckin' can't with that. No offense, or nothing, and I'm sure you went out of your way to do this for me, but he—or it, or whatever—needs to go."

He can hear the frown in her next words. "I'm sorry, Duck, but I cannot take Beacon with me. The blade is yours, determined for you by fate. There are no exchanges — this is your chosen weapon."

"That thing is a _nightmare_ , you can't leave it with me."

"I most certainly can, Duck Newton, and I intend to. Whether you accept it or not, the day will come when you shall need a blade at your side, and I will not risk your future safety simply because the weapon does not meet your expectations."

"No, I won't," Duck says, doing his best to tune out Beacon's protests from under the flannel.

"I can assure you, you will. When the moment comes to take up your mantle—"

"I'm not taking up _shit_ , Minerva. I'm done with this."

"I...I don't understand, Duck Newton."

"Then I'll make it real clear — I'm not fucking doing this hero bullshit, not any of it. It's been months of you poppin' up like the world's worst jack-in-the-box to tell me that I have to save the planet, or whatever, and I'm telling you that I'm fucking done. I'm not going to be the destined hero, I don't give a shit what fate has in store for me, and I'm certainly not goin' into battle with the low-tech, asshole cousin to the car from _Knight Rider_ , okay? I never wanted to be part of this, and I'm deciding right now that I don't have to be. I'm out."

Minerva hesitates for a long while, letting out a slow breath before she speaks. "I understand that the future seems difficult, Duck Newton, but you are caught at the center of events, whether you wish it or not. You cannot run from your destiny, and it would be _foolish_ of you to try."

Duck snorts. "Fucking watch me." And with Beacon still buried under his clothes and Minerva standing there silently, he walks out of the room.

 

—

 

By the time he gets back an hour later, Minerva is gone but the goddamn sword is still there, letting out a stream of fairly inventive insults from where it's buried underneath three layers of fabric and an old hoodie. Part of Duck had been hoping it would disappear along with Minerva, but of course he doesn't get that lucky. Of course he gets saddled with a weapon that talks more than a late-night radio host. Fucking perfect. He eventually manages to get the thing rolled back up into its coiled form and figures that the half-dozen cuts he earns on either hand are worth getting that stupid voice to shut up. What a dick.

Once the sword is quiet, Duck shoves the thing to the back of his closet behind the dress shoes he only wears once or twice a year, deciding that this chapter of his life is definitely over. And he plans on telling Minerva the same, the next time that she shows up, except then she doesn't. A week goes by, and then another, and Duck's just about hit the point of missing her when he sees a flash of blue-white while he's taking out the trash. Has an apology sitting on the tip of his tongue, except then Minerva starts in on his destiny and what fate has in store for him, and Duck finds himself getting pissed all over again. They have a replay of that same shouting match from two weeks back, except this time Duck's holding a bin of recyclables, and Beacon's collecting dust at the base of his closet instead of talking shit from under a pile of laundry. The gist of their words stay the same, though — Minerva wants him to accept his future, and Duck's not fucking having it. When she disappears this time, she doesn't let him have the last word but leaves in the middle of his sentence, and Duck feels deflated, almost. All that anger and resentment rushing out of him like a popped balloon until he's just tired, and maybe a little regretful.

He doesn't see Minerva again for over twenty years.

 

—

 

Duck thinks about Minerva less, as time goes on, but Beacon proves a little harder to ignore. Not like he can leave an honest-to-god _sword_ in the closet for his parents to find when it's time for him to move out. Not like he can pawn it off at a garage sale when it's got a fucking mouth and likes to spout insults at whatever asshole happens to be holding it. No, for the time being, Duck knows he's stuck with the thing, and so when he moves out, Beacon goes with him. Relocates the prick from the back of the closet in his childhood home to an empty shoebox shoved under the bed of the two-bedroom apartment he shares with a buddy from high school, and eventually to the upper shelf of a kitchen cabinet when he gets his own place. Sits up there collecting dust along with the Cuisinart his mom bought him as a housewarming gift.

After that, he finds it easier to forget about Beacon. It's not like he ever feels tempted to try wielding the fucking thing. Not like he gets home from work and is so desperate to hear what Beacon has to say after eleven months of playing roommates with a handful of cobwebs and some floral contact paper. His mouth could have rusted shut for all Duck cares. Actually, that'd probably be an improvement.

But there's one night after a particularly shitty day at work that Duck gets to thinking about Minerva again. Pours himself his third glass of whiskey and Dr. Pepper and can't help but wonder if he'd made a mistake three years back when he told her he was done. He doesn't particularly want to be the 'Chosen One', or anything, but wouldn't that at least give some purpose to his life? Wouldn't that be better than collecting paper-cuts at this month's temp job while he tries to sort out what's supposed to happen next?

He's sitting on his kitchen floor at that point, the room already going a little dizzy like he's just walked off the Twister at the Kepler County Fair, and that's when he gets the bright idea to pull Beacon out of the cabinet. It makes a certain kind of sense to him in the moment, given that Beacon must've come from the same place that Minerva does, and so maybe there's some sort of connection between them. But Duck also knocks a souvenir magnet off the fridge as he stands, and he can't actually remember whether that's his third or fourth drink he's just finished, so maybe he also should've known it was time to put himself to bed. He doesn't, though, and instead pulls open the cabinet door while bracing himself against the countertop, fishing around inside with one hand until he brushes up against the hilt, catching enough of it by the tips of his fingers to get it down off the shelf.

Duck realizes he's made a mistake as soon as Beacon unfurls enough to start talking.

"Could it be? Do my senses deceive me or is that _Duck Newton_ visiting me after my long exile, hmm?" Beacon hits every consonant in Duck's name like each one is a personal offense, which, Duck supposes, they might be. "Three years you've kept me waiting in the dark, Duck. I am a weapon forged by the will of divinity and for _three years_ I've been gathering dust next to your other forgotten possessions like so much common garbage. And what have you done with that time, Duck Newton? How have you spent your years that triumphs the work we could have accomplished together as Chosen One and his chosen weapon? Because from where I sit, Duck—and indeed that's all I've done, is _sit_ —it looks to me like you've wasted your time. Isn't that right, Duck? That you've wasted your years as much as you've wasted mine?"

Jesus, Beacon's voice is worse than he remembers, worse than the whine of a mosquito hovering somewhere near his ear, but Duck at least has enough sense to figure that he probably shouldn't go fucking around with a sword while his hands are this clumsy from the whiskey. He leaves Beacon unfurled, but he knows that he'll never get any sleep with the thing yammering on like that, so Duck settles for shoving him into the oven until he can sober up enough to get Beacon back into a coil. Fuck trying to get in touch with Minerva, and _fuck_ the fucking sword. All he wants to do right now is go to bed.

The next day as Duck's driving to work—still half hungover and annoyed as hell from dealing with Beacon in the morning—he passes by the Cryptonomica and gets an idea. And after a phone call with Ned that's deliberately vague on his end, Beacon moves one more time from Duck's kitchen to the back room at the shop, along with Ned's promise that the thing will be kept safe for him. You know, just in case the world really does start coming to an end.

A couple months later, Duck gets a job as a ranger for the Monongahela National Forest, and he starts to feel like his life is coming together in a new sort of way. Enough so that he doesn't ever go wishing for Minerva's company, or feeling even half-tempted to take up any kind of weapon and fight crime.

But shit happens, doesn't it.

 

—

 

After the first Abomination is dead, and after his post-battle chat with Minerva, Duck takes Beacon out of the cabinet and walks to the middle of his living room as the blade uncoils in his hand. Not to train, and not to do much of anything other than hold the thing and see how he feels. Sure, he'd spent all afternoon with Beacon at his side—had even learned how it felt to bury the tip of the blade into something breathing and violent—but it's not like he'd been aware of much in the moment other than the panicked hold that adrenaline and fear had on his senses.

Now, he's got a moment to breathe. So he shoves the ottoman out of the way with his foot, and he closes his eyes, and he thinks back to being eighteen and holding Beacon for the first time. Remembers that feeling of taking up the sword and seeing himself as someone playacting a part out of his league, and it surprises him that he doesn't get that same sense of being an imposter now. Even though he knows he's twenty years older, knows he's done a fair bit of growing since he was living at home and whining about doing the dishes, he's still just Duck. A Forest Service ranger whose back is already bothering him in his forties and the idea of him with a fucking _sword_ should be ridiculous. And it is, when Duck thinks about it like that, but he's also the one who helped take down a monster a couple hours ago, so, who knows. Maybe the sword suits him after all.

"Are you proud of the work we accomplished today, Duck Newton?" Beacon asks. "Now that you've seen what we are capable of together, don't you regret the years we spent apart? Don't you wish we'd been doing this for the last twenty years?"

"Not really," Duck says, opening his eyes. "But I guess we are partners now, so, maybe try not to be too shitty about it."

Beacon still is, of course. But it's not also not like Duck puts him back in a shoebox or anything, so he supposes it's progress.


End file.
